


What's in There?

by Azile_Teacup



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Magic, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:58:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2887679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azile_Teacup/pseuds/Azile_Teacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: poltergeist</p><p>a party goes not quite as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fire Burnt It

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS (contain come slight spoilers):
> 
>  
> 
> grief, oc death (in past), death of child (in past, grief in present), injury,

Merlin’s hand slips out of his and Arthur lets him go without a thought, caught up listening to Merlin’s friends talking about football. He does turn to give him a smile, because Merlin squealed with excitement before letting go, but then he turns away and that, he decides is his worst decision of the night. It is the point of no return, he tells Merlin later. But, when it happens, he doesn’t notice Merlin bouncing away to talk excitedly to Elena about the little tiny puppy she’d brought along with her. 

It’s ten minutes before Arthur realises anything’s wrong. Or, no, he starts to feel a bit cold before that but he just tugs his jumper round him and leans a bit closer to Merlin’s mate, Percy, who is like a furnace, in the guise of listening to him go on and on about the ref. And then he shivers and glances around at the others and realises they’re all in t-shirts and most are sweaty. 

“Is no one else cold?” Arthur asks, nonchalantly. 

“Cold? Are you mad? It’s baking in here!” 

Arthur doesn’t know the guy’s name, Merlin introduced him to hundreds of people tonight and he’s only met Elena and Gwen before, and he’s bad at names generally. The rest of the crowd seem to consent on the assessment of heat and the conversation, broken by Arthur, turns away from football and the group breaks up. 

Usually Arthur’d just insinuate himself somewhere else, follow Percy (who’s name he remembers), ask the guy who told him the heat his name, or some kind of thing. He’s good at social events. He might not be smooth but he can be charmingly ridiculous and he can make people laugh. And, if all else fails, he can fall back on his super-posh manners and be the ponce his father taught him. But, the chill has settled in him, even if no one else can feel it, and it brings sadness with it. Not his own sadness. 

“Damn it, who is that? It’s New Years, you’re all supposed to be off your heads with joy,” Arthur mutters, scanning the crowd for the culprit or for Merlin. 

He spots neither and the feeling isn’t shifting. He moves through the other downstairs rooms, looking for Merlin, now, because his hands are beginning to shake and the feeling’s gone from a vague kind of sadness to something painful lodged below ribs that aren’t his. Arthur doesn’t find Merlin in the dozen or so rooms open for the party. He must have slipped away with Elena, somewhere private, not worrying about Arthur. 

Why would he worry? Arthur’s perfectly capable of looking after himself at a party. He just wishes that invites would come with a warning about emotion. Not that New Years doesn’t come with a embedded warning for emotion, but Arthur doesn’t usually succumb so easily, especially to strangers he’s not even connecting with or talking to. He gives up on Merlin, because he can feel tears threatening which is just not on, he doesn’t cry. He focusses on the pain, lets it swallow him, and then traces it. He has to wrap an arm around his chest to keep from sobbing, and soon he leaves the crowd of people and finds himself in an empty hall. 

The surge of rage is so sudden that Arthur can’t get a grip on it, and he turns, growlng low in his throat, knocking over a table and punching the wall. 

“Oops,” he says, looking at the dent he made. 

He isn’t surprised, per say, because grief (and the sadness _is_ grief, it’s too deep to be anything else) is often accompanied by anger, but anger is more difficult to control than sadness. Not that he hasn’t had practise. He manages to shake it off and walks, shaking all over now and not bothering to try and stop his body’s reactions to the emotion flooding him (tears, sweat, cold, shivers, shakes), breathing hard through the anger and misery. 

He stops abruptly by a door with an ornate handle and twists, slowly, pushing it open. He’s expecting a wall of screaming, or a room full of blood, or something dramatic, but there’s nothing. Just the soft sound of the door sweeping over deep carpet. He flicks on the light and gapes at the child’s nursery that’s illuminated. Then again, the emotion makes sense if it’s a child. 

“Hello?” Arthur says, “are you okay? I just… I wandered off from the party and must have taken a wrong-“

Arthur stops. No one’s there, no one’s in the room. It’s empty, and more than that, it’s dusty. Arthur frowns and turns a slow circle in the centre of the room, where he’s ended up. The emotion is definitely here, it’s cloying, clinging to him, making him want to sink to his knees and give up and sob and give up. Making him want to tear the room apart. Making him want to slam the door until the windows shatter. 

The door slams. 

The windows shatter. 

Arthur spins, but there’s still no one there. 

“Oh, shit,” he manages, before the lamp with the bright lampshade covered in fluffy animal pictures hits him in the head. 

Parties should definitely come with a ‘haunted loaction’ warning. 

Arthur tumbles to the floor, but he gets back on his feet at once. He knows, by now, that to stay down is to admit defeat and to admit defeat lowers one’s chances of survival. It’s instinctive, he can’t think clearly, his heart’s beating too hard, the dark edges of the room impossible to keep track of all at once, his eyes are swimming with tears. He does manage to spot the hobby horse flying at his head. He catches it and holds it in defence across his body. 

He turns, turns again, searching. There’s no trace, though, no disturbance, no motion. 

“You’re a poltergeist, then,” Arthur says, to empty air that he knows isn’t quite so empty, “hi, I’m Arthur. I’m an empaaaath!”

The last turns into a yell as the rug he’s stood on flies out from under his feet and he’s shot into the wall. 

“Ow. Not friendly, mate,” Arthur says, hoiking himself up to sit against a shelf that’s right there, “not friendly at all.”

What next? He’s dealt with Poltergeists before, but only a few times. The amount of sheer anger needed to fuel such a consciousness is… Arthur can feel it, sweeping through him, and he stops trying to control it. He yells, staggering to his feet, and sweeps everything off the shelves, tears the bookshelf apart. 

“Bloody hell,” he says, panting, looking at the shards of wood, his bleeding hands, “that’s some temper you have.”

He’s spun, and he goes with it, reaching up and yanking pictures off the walls, tearing the bedsheets out of the crib, and stills against the opposite wall, head aching, body aching, a puppet. He’s got a teddy bear in his hands and before he can stop himself he’s pulling the seams apart, leaving it bleeding stuffing onto the carpet. Which is next, torn up around him, objects hitting him. And not much is left, aside from the crib, the chest of drawers. And himself. 

Arthur’s can feel exhaustion dragging him down, trying to tie him to the floor. If he keeps fighting he’s going to sink into the floor. He shuts his eyes and embraces everything. Not just the anger, but the fear, the sadness, the grief, the confusion. He lets it chase the chill into him, lets it freeze his heart, then he looks around. 

“This is wrong,” he says, cocking his head to one side, “shouldn’t be here. I’ll change it, make it right. Shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be here!”

He takes the crib apart, first. Piece by piece, throwing and hitting the wall with it, taking it apart until it joins the splinters of the shelf. Then the drawers. Unpacked one by one, all her clothes undone, unstitched by his fingers, all her life taken apart. Shouldn’t be here. Too much of it, not fair, too little of it, not gone, she’s gone, they’re all gone. 

Arthur destroys the chest next, and then looks. Just the walls, just the floor. He tears up a few floorboards, tears the flesh of his stomach with his fingers to paint the walls with blood, then turns, turns, and finds just the body. Just the bones and flesh and teeth and hair. He jerks and jerks, throwing himself into things, flinging the body to the floor, into the wood, against the glass, nails against clothes, flesh, nails. 

“Arthur!”

Blood, blood, more bodies. In the door. 

And then Arthur jolts, and feels Merlin’s hand on his biceps, and he screams. 

“Bugger this,” Merlin says, “What is it?”

Arthur pants through the haze of everything, the little girl, the baby. He looks at the small face, peaceful, sleeping. Sleeping. He shuts his eyes and takes the child in his arms. There, he thinks, there you go. We have her, we have her. I have her. He gets a hand on Merlin’s wrist while he’s distracted and clamps down, pushing it out. It’s like turning ones’ self inside out, and it hurts, and as it leaves him, as the emotion goes, the adrenaline sinks and other pain is made clear. He screams again, sobbing, hanging onto Merlin to keep himself upright.

“Arthur, what? I can’t do it if I don’t know… ghost? Shade? Someone here? Jesus, someone here wants this for themselves? No?” Arthur shudders, waiting for Merlin to name it, keeping his eyes shut, sinking his teeth into Merlin’s neck to get _more_ , “ow, you little shit! Okay, shh, it’s okay. Have at me. Poltergeist? No, that’s- wait, seriously? Shite.”

Arthur gulps, lets go and falls against Merlin’s legs, leaning there, on the floor somehow, to watch the show. 

“Right. Hello there, you met Arthur, now you meet the other side of it all. I’m Merlin. Where, Arthur?”

Arthur gets hold of Merlin’s ankle and blinks, looking around until he can pinpoint. 

“Corner left back.”

There’s a flash of gold, but it misses. 

“Window one.”

This time the light hits and permeates the room and there’s a woman stood there, hair disarrayed, face twisted and contorted. She comes at them and Arthur tears at the skin of Merlin’s ankle, cursing and spitting.

“Arthur, get a grip,” Merlin snaps.

Merlin. Merlin’s blood. Arthur breathes out until he can breath out no longer and then looks, finds the books, the pages ripped, the covers strewn about. 

“What’s in there? Gold and money,” he croaks, “where’s my share? The mouse ran away with it. Where’s the mousie? In her housie. Where’s her housie? In the wood.”

The monster pauses, hesitates, whispering along, head tilted, eyes on Arthur. He meets her gaze, because he can, because he’s felt that. He knows it. And god, he’d tear the world apart, too. 

“Where’s the wood? The fire burnt it. Where’s the fire?” they chant, together, “the water quenched it. Where’s the water? The brown bull drank it. Where’s the brown bull? Back of Burnie’s hill.”

The spirit starts to cry and Arthur cries with her. 

“I can do it now,” Merlin says, “Arthur?”

“Not yet,” he manages, “wait.”

The woman starts to sing, rocking, arms hugging herself, head swaying along. Her voice is beautiful and piercing and holds such pain and suffering. Arthur’s voice cracks and he screams again, shutting his eyes. He bites right through his lip closing it out and then he opens his eyes, but he’s facing the door. And he can see Elena stood there, staring at him in horror, and he recognises it. He can feel it inside her and now he at least knows why he disliked and avoided Elena in the past. He turns back to the woman and she watches him, lowering her head, waiting, expectent.

“Arthur?” Merlin asks, voice strained from holding whatever charm has manifested and holds the spirit. 

“Elena,” Arthur says. 

Merlin doesn’t ask, just reaches back and drags her to him and lets his magic react. Arthur watches as Elena cries in agony and he can feel that, in a distant, exhausted kind of way, flooding him. Her face changes, changes back, flickering, flickering, and then she collapses. The woman sings louder and then switches to a lullaby, and Arthur breathes out a sigh of relief, warmth and joy and relief and everything shifts and he leans against Merlin’s shins.

“Now,” he says. 

Merlin starts his own chant, a language Arthur doesn’t know, hand out to the woman. She just wanders off, baby cradled in her arms, and the room fades to dimness. Arthur blinks around at the destruction. 

“Ellie?” Merlin says, taking his support away from Arthur. Arthur slides to the floor and lies on his side, looking at the shards of wood, covered in his own blood, “what happened to her?”

Arthur tries to answer but he can’t. He’s high on the woman’s delight and he can still hear her, singing, singing, happiness bubbling over. He sighs into the wood and clenches his fingers against it. 

“Ellie?” Merlin says again, sounding more frantic. 

Arthur feels that, and he’s so open because of the happiness that Merlin’s worry is incredibly painful. He curls into the floor and actually whimpers a little. Then he shifts so he can reach for Merlin’s hand, but it’s not there waiting. 

“What did you make me do to her?” Merlin asks. 

Oh, and that hurts. The anger, the accusation, like a knife tearing into his inside-out flesh. 

“What did I do?” Merlin yells.

“She was hers,” Arthur manages, around the blood in his mouth, “here, they put her in… I don’t… I don’t know. Magic.”

Arthur reaches for the word, looking in the consciousness he was part of, and finds only one.

“Changeling,” he manages, then spits the blood out. 

“uh…. Merlin?” Elena says, “what… what happened? Oh, I feel… I feel funny.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I reckon. What the hell happened here?”

“I’ll explain later. I need… Arthur.”

“Crap, he looks awful. I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Yeah.”

Arthur feels Merlin’s hand taking his, finally, and the anger’s gone and the worry’s gone and it’s just Merlin, just soothing. Arthur holds on. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Merlin says, “Right here, Arthur. I’m right here, I found you.”

Merlin goes on a bit, blabbering about looking for Arthur at the party and finding him gone and Percy saying he’d just wandered off and searching and then hearing a crash and finding him with her. Arthur closes his eyes and floats on the cloud of Merlin’s assurance until there’s an intrusion. 

“Fuck off, don’t fucking touch him!” Merlin snarls, pressing tight and close, warding off the new emotion, “he’s an empath you twats!”

Arthur hears other voices, but he doesn’t bother with them until one’s soft and easy. 

“Hey, I’m Isolde, I’m here to heal. Can you let me touch you, so I can put up a shield for you? Then we can get you to…”

“Gwaine,” Merlin supplies his doctor’s name for her.

“To Gwaine.”

Arthur shakes his head. He doesn’t want anyone except Merlin touching, it hurts. 

“I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’m a specialist, I’m very good at my job.”

Arthur shakes his head again, feeling a few sobs shake him.

“What was it?” Isolde asks.

“Poltergiest of a mother who lost her child, as far as I can gather,” Merlin says, “I don’t understand, because no one died here.”

“No wonder he’s refusing. Okay. I’m going to have to do this anyway, if I have your consent? He’s not going to say yes.”

“Are you sure it won’t hurt?”

“I’m sure.”

No, Arthur wants to say. No, it will hurt, don’t let her. But then there’s a cold, unfamiliar hand on his bare skin and more tears tumble over his face. But there isn’t pain, she was right. Not the kind of pain he was expecting. Just normal, physical pain, and a kind of tingling through him. He relaxes a little. 

“Good. Thank you, Arthur. I’m sorry I had to do that. Okay, we’re going to get you on to a stretcher, now, and into the ambulance. My partner will call Gwaine and find out what we can give you, it won’t be much longer now,” Isolde says. 

Arthur gets hold of Merlin’s hand and holds on tight, but the shield is good, it doesn’t hurt when he’s lifted and he’s carried through the throng of gawping party goers without a twinge and then, in the ambulance, the wailing sirens hurt his head but nothing else. 

“They’re going to put you to sleep, lovely thing,” Merlin says, soft and warm in his ear, “alright? You’re going to go to sleep now.”

Arthur nods. That sounds nice. That sounds really nice.


	2. The Water Quenched It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS (contain come slight spoilers):
> 
>  
> 
> grief, oc death (in past), death of child (in past, grief in present), injury,

Merlin paces the waiting room while Gwaine stitches Arthur up. He wants to be back there and he’s usually allowed, but Gwaine had banished him because of his anxiety and irritability and such like. Emotions. They’ll disturb Arthur, he’d said. Like Merlin didn’t already know that. He had it under control. Arsehole. 

“Merlin?”

Merlin spins and trips over his feet, but it’s only Elena.

“Hey,” he says, slumping into a chair. 

“How is he?”

“Dunno. Gwaine’s stitching up the cuts, cleaning the… he tore off a lot of skin with his nails. He fucked his knee up again, has a concussion, sprained wrist, dislocated shoulder, bruises all over, a deep cut in his side, he’s lost blood, and that’s just the physical stuff. Gwaine thinks that he shared consciousness with her, whoever she was. He’s now going to have to get over the loss of a child he never had.”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know.”

“Not your fault.”

“She was my mother, I think. I spoke to my Dad. I was a twin, I was born with an identical twin. My sister died when we were ten months, and my mother followed her. By choice. I never knew, I never… I didn’t know why my mother killed herself. I didn’t know she did it there. I didn’t know they’d made that horrific shrine.”

“Arthur said you were a changeling.”

Gaius comes into the waiting room, then, and their conversation is derailed. Merlin gets up and hugs Gaius and clings to him and cries a lot and basically breaks down in an incredibly embarrassing way. And gets snot on him. 

“Sorry,” he chokes, eventually getting a bit of a grip, “um, sorry.”

“Alright, my boy? Old Godfrey gave me a call, told me there was reason to worry.”

“Arthur’s hurt. He came to Elena’s party, at the house.”

“Ah. He discovered, I assume, Maya?”

Merlin shrugs. He’s run out of energy, he just wants to see Arthur. He goes back to the horrible plastic chair and curses Gwaine for being at the hospital tonight. He likes Gwaine’s surgery, it’s much more comfortable, it’s tailored for empaths so everything’s soothing and quiet and soft and it’s nice. Merlin sulks a bit for a while, then dozes on Gaius’s shoulder, then sends Elena home. 

“How are you doing?” Gaius asks, after another hour.

“Not great. I want to see him,” Merlin says, “he scared me tonight.”

Gaius sighs and tugs him into a ferocious hug. 

“I suppose this answers my question about how serious your latest is, anyway,” Gaius says.

Gwaine comes out, then, and Merlin leaps to his feet and runs over to get hold of Gwaine’s shoulders, only just managing to stop himself giving a rough shake. 

“Arthur?” he asks. 

“Is doing fine,” Gwaine says, gently removing Merlin’s hands, “I kept him sedated for most of it, and now he’s on a mild narcotic. He’s high as a kite and quite giddy with happiness. He keeps saying how nice it is to have ‘her’ back.”

Gwaine huffs out a breath and rubs his face before meeting Merlin’s eyes, a little more grim than Merlin likes but reassuring non the less.

“What?” Meriln asks, “what’s that look for?”

“He’s doing fine, really. But… he seems a little confused. I’d like to keep him here a while. For the physical injuries, but… I’m a little baffled by his mental state, to be honest.”

“I’ll tell you what I know, but can I see him?”

Gwaine takes him through the sterile corridors and listens to Merlin giving the information he has, frown growing more and more pronounced as they go.

“I put him in a private room, as is standard for an empath on narcotics,” Gwaine says, “the twin thing doesn’t explain that. There are rumours about twin spirits sticking around, but it’s only very vague rumour and there’s never been any kind of… nothing like this. I would also guess that the poltergeist would be far, far older than that. I’ll talk to Tristan, see what he makes of it.”

“Tristan?” Merlin asks.

“He’s the expert on this stuff. You met his wife tonight, actually. This one.”

Merlin pushes open the door to the room and forgets about Gwaine. Arthur’s lying, one arm up, twirling bandaged fingers through the air and giggling. He looks awful, but the blood’s been cleaned off, his injuries are all bound and out of sight, and though his skin’s pale there’s some colour in his cheeks. He also doesn’t look like he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown, which Merlin had been sure was what was happening, earlier, at first. 

“Hey,” Merlin croaks, moving over to the bed, catching the crazy hand.

“Ah, Merlin. You came! _Fi_ nally. I’ve been waiting. Honestly, you can’t ever be on time.”

“I hadn’t realised there was an appointment.”

“Of course you hadn’t, you always forget,” Arthur says, cheerfully enough, touching Merlin’s cheek, “I’m haven’t enough skin. My skin’s turned to… to… paper? Cloth. I’m a mummy.”

“An Egyptian one, or the other sort?”

“Both. Or, Egyptian, but I found a mother and we found her. We found her daughter. They took her, Merlin. So long ago. So so long without her. But, you freed her. You got her.”

“You’re high.”

“Yup. I feel better.”

“Good.”

“I was scared, earlier, but then you came, all glowing and yellow.”

“Good.”

“Can you get in, now?”

“In where?”

“Bed. I told you, I’ve been waiting.”

Merlin laughs and kicks off his shoes, ignoring Gwaine clearing his throat, and gets under the covers to curl up with Arthur. 

“S’nice,” Arthur murmurs, snuggling closer, pressing his nose into Merlin’s shoulder, “you smell nice.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Nuh.”

“Then get some sleep.”

Merlin falls into an exhausted sleep sometime after Arthur does, and when he wakes the room’s got that dim, pre-dawn freshness that mean he’s slept right through the night. He’s comfortable, lying with Arthur, so he stays where he is and drifts, enjoying the warmth. Arthur’s still under Merlin’s hand, chest rising and falling evenly in sleep, eyes still under his lids, peaceful. Merlin watches.

“I never thought I’d be able to do this,” he says, when Gwaine slips into the room, “just look at someone. I thought it’d be boring. But there’s so many things going on in Arthur’s face, and he’s so beautiful.”

“I think you’re a tad biased.”

“You don’t think he’s beautiful?” 

“You know I do.”

Merlin turns to look at Gwaine, and smiles at what he finds in his expression. He knows that Gwaine loves Arthur, that he was even in love with Arthur at one point, and he sometimes worries about that. He’s a very good doctor and he’s very good at dealing with Arthur’s various… mishaps, especially in terms of the empathy. He’s also one of the few people who don’t transmit, as Arthur calls it, to Arthur, so Arthur can bear him in his space when he’s raw. Today, though, Merlin just finds friendly fondness and a good bit of exasperation. 

“So?” Merlin asks, “to what do we owe the early morning visit?”

“It’s nine thirty,” Gwaine says, “hardly the break of day.”

“It’s early. What’s up?”

“Talked to Tristan, this morning. Time difference, he’s elsewhere. Anyway. He said that the poltergeist can’t have been Elena’s mother, because that kind of lingering spirit takes a while to form and it sounds to him like this particular one had been fed off a few generations of pain. He’s looking into it.”

“Arthur might know something,” Merlin says, yawning, “I don’t really care, to be honest. Arthur’ll be interested, I’m just glad he’s okay for the moment. Maybe later we can go to work on it. If anyone wants that. I mean, it’s gone. We kind of already did the job people usually pay us for, right?”

“Right.”

“Did you just come with the update?”

“Thought I’d check on you guys, see how your night was. I guess it was peaceful, though, judging by the look on his face.”

Merlin looks. Arthur looks entirely blissed out, and is drooling into the pillow, mouth gaping open. 

“I think I have some in my hair,” Merlin grumbles, feeling through the stuck strands on his head, “ew. You’d think I’d get used to it, but it’s still gross.”

“He’s always been a drooler,” Gwaine says, laughing, “when we were kids there was an ongoing sort of competition to get him to fall asleep at house parties so we could get pictures of him drooling.”

“Wow, you guys were so very cool.”

“We were complete and utter dorks, and don’t let Arthur convince you otherwise. He deserves his nerd-status, entirely. Just misquote a couple of things, go on about how great you think a comic book character is but only in the films, and you’ll set him off. He’ll give himself away. Wolverine, is a particular weak spot. He’s very very cross about film-Logan.”

Merlin grins. He’s vaguely aware of Arthur’s secret nerd-status, but it’s good ammo for the future. 

“Wolverine,” he says, “I’ll take note.”

Arthur shifts, eyes slitting open, and he glares. 

“Noisy,” he complains.

“Sorry,” Merlin whispers, “did we wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry!” Gwaine says, loudly, clearly not. Arthur glares at him in his turn and then subsides against Merlin, face creasing with pain. 

“Alright?” Merlin asks.

“Mm. Groggy. I hurt all over, what did I do to myself?”

“Dislocated shoulder, sprained wrist, you strained your ACL again, slight concussion, probably massive headache,” Merlin lists.

“Sounds about right. Oh, hey, Merlin?”

“Yehuh?”

“Soffia. Soffia Boyaš.”

“Yes?” Merlin says, stroking Arthur’s hair, wondering if he bumped his head harder than they considered, “Is she someone I… need to call?”

“No. She was… poltergeist. Her family was cursed, her daughter killed.”

“Oh. Elena?” Merlin asks.

“Uh, not sure. Her daughter was somehow part of her. Inside her. A spirit? I’m not sure. A very angry… painful… I never liked Elena much. At least it wasn’t her, huh? Silver lining and all. Maybe now I’ll like your mate.”

“Go to sleep, Arthur, you dolt.”

“Kay.”

Arthur shifts and shivers and moves uncomfortably for a while, and eventually, after he tries talking and soothing nonsense and pressing the button for medication and waiting the required half hour and everything he can think of, Merlin presses the call button to beg Gwaine to give Arthur a slightly higher pain dose. The nurse insists on Merlin leaving while she examines him, explaining (as if he were simple to even question it) that she’s trained to work on the empath ward, which this is, and then bustling him out. It takes another half hour for Gwiane to okay medication and by then Merlin’s bitten his nails off watching Arthur squirm. 

“I’m fine, Merls. Absolutely fine,” Arthur mutters, tugging Merlin back into bed and huffing, “even better now.”

He curls into Merlin’s side as the narcotic spreads through his veins, sighing, grin growing over his face, eyes going glassy.

“Better?” Merlin asks.

“Mm. Mush better. Mush. Muuuuush. Shh.”

Arthru frowns, sticking his tongue out and pinching it, poking at it.

“I’sh nuu,” he says, turning to Merlin. 

Merlin tries to decipher that. Arthur looks cross eyed at his tongue, then lets go of it and lets it lol out before sucking it back into his mouth. 

“It’s numb,” he says, trying again. 

“Oh,” Merlin says, “right. Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Arthur snuggles back in against Merlin’s side, taking his word for it, smacking his lips and giggling a little bit. 

“Never felt anything like holding her, after so many centuries,” Arthur says, after a bit, hushed, reverent, “holding her child again. Nothing like it.”

“You want them? Children?”

“Oh hell no!” 

Merlin laughs and tightens his arms, glad that Arthur’s still Arthur. He might’ve shared consciousnesses or whatever, but he’s still stubbornly idiotic. 

“Such a mule,” Merlin says, kissing his hair, “you scared the bejeezus out of me.”

“Yeah, out of me, too. Thought I was a gonner. I was looking around and there was nothing left to destroy except myself, and in the end I gave that up willingly because I could just feel it all. Don’t know how people cope with that kind of grief.”

“Me neither.”

“Is there any food? I’m hungry. Also, she had very soft hair. Mmhmm. Nice books. I liked the party, liked Percy.”

“Is that the only name you remembered?” Merlin asks.

“Maybe. I liked him, he was like a furnace.”

“Oh, you really did remember him, okay. Yeah, Percy’s a good bloke.”

“I play football, you know that? I’m good at that. And Rugby. And boxing. So fun.”

“I did know.”

“Mm. Everyone’s so volatile, it’s like being high.”

Arthur’s told Merlin about the ‘high’ of the emotional intensity of the football pitch before. He’s also told him about the horror of losing an important game, describing it as ‘the sun going out’. 

“I love you, you know,” Merlin says, choking a bit on it, “I think I really do. I know it’s quite new, all this, but I do love you.”

“Cool beans. Beans! What about that food?”

“You want beans?”

Arthur tips his head back and beams at Merlin, eyes bright, face bruised and pale, looking lovely. Incredibly lovely. 

“I want…” Arthur says, tapping the back of Merlin’s hand, “jelly beans!”

Merlin snorts as Arthur laughs himself silly, going noodle-limp in Merlin’s arms. 

“I’m gonna make you meet my Dad,” Arthur says, smugly, “because you said the ‘l’ word. You’re gonna absolutely hate my Dad.”

“You’ll love my mother. It seems an unequal exchange.”

“I’ll offer Gwaine. And…” Arthur thinks for a really long time about that, then droops, “Shh. Sleep now.”

“I will accept Gwaine with gratitude, you numpty. And Morgana, Leon, Ranulf, all the people who love your idiotic arse.”

“Merlin?”

“Yeah, numpty?”

“I love you, as well. Not just because you’re awesome at ghostie chasing and stuff, either. And not just cus you’re magic. And not just cus you don’t hurt when you touch ever. And not just cus you’re awesome. I love you cus you’re daft and really silly, and a bit of a thick dolt, and completely useless at most things, and gangly and lovely and strong and Merlin.”

“Yeah?”

“No. I love you cus you’re Merlin.”

“You’re… yeah, okay. I dunno what that means, but okay.”

Arthur snores loudly in response, which Merlin thinks is fair enough. He settles down to keep watch over him.


End file.
